Month: July 2016

Granted police killed nearly twice as many Whites as Blacks in 2015, but according to U.S. census data out of the 323,730,000 people listed as US citizens, there were nearly 160 million MORE White people in the Unites States than there were Black people.

According to the July 2015 United States Census Bureau White people made up 71.1% of the U.S. population while Black people comprise only 13.3 % of the population; however Black’s accounted for 37% of murder victims by police compared to only 7% of White murder by police victims signifying Blacks are 3.5 times more likely to be executed by police; five times higher per-capita.

1,134 people were killed by police in 2015; at least 102 unarmed Black people, nearly two every week. Roughly 1 in 3 was identified as unarmed, though the actual number is likely higher due to underreporting. Of all the unarmed people murdered by police, 42% were young Black men, 25% were unarmed, compared with 17% of White people, even though Black males made up only 6% of the Black population. Therefore young Black men were assassinated at a rate disproportionate to the percentage of U.S. population. Additionally Black people were found to be twice as likely to NOT to be armed with a weapon.

Only 10 of the 102 cases in 2015 where an unarmed Black person was killed by police resulted in officer(s) being charged with a crime, and only 2 of these deaths resulted in convictions of the officers involved. Only 1 of 2 officers was convicted for their involvement and sentenced to 1 year in jail and allowed to serve his time exclusively on weekends while the other is still awaiting sentencing.

71% of LEO killed in 2015 were killed by White men. Seventy-one percent of police who’ve been shot and killed this year weren’t murdered by Black men with cornrows or hoodies. They weren’t gunned down by Latinx gang members in low-rider drive-bys. Those stereotypes would be all too convenient; instead, AND 71% of police who’ve been shot and killed so far in 2016 have been killed by good old-fashioned White men.

So far in 2016 police have assassinated 509 people; 238 Whites, 123 Blacks, 79 Latinx, 69 Unknown victims. 484 were male, 25 female, 124 suffered from mental health conditions and 35 were confirmed unarmed. About 6 percent of fatal shootings this year have been captured by body cameras, yet police most frequently refuse to publicly release video. In more than half the cases in which body-cam footage was available, police declined.

Although the FBI is charged with keeping statistics on shootings they do not collect the data; law enforcement agencies provide it to the FBI, which then compiles the reports. Even though it’s mandatory for police dept.’s to forward their stats, most don’t and so far the FBI hasn’t enforced their rule which is a sad post analysis of FBI data which shows fewer than half of the nation’s 18,000 police departments report their incidents to the agency.

More than 3,700 people have been killed by U.S. police since May 1, 2013

When Toni Morrison said that racism keeps you from doing your work she was absolutely correct.

“The function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language, so you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Someone says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
~ Toni Morrison

I was trying to be productive the other day when I came across this tweet from Steve Perry:

Although some “professionals” out here who work with Black children think they have their best interests in mind, their actions can do damage to the child’s self-esteem, especially if they have not addressed their own internalized racism and how it influences their work.

I’m calling for a stop to all these “experts” out here who peddle the idea to Black kids that success means becoming less of who you are.